Fragmentary Memories
by Airia Black
Summary: Bill watches Charlie fly to magnificient heights from the recessess' of the quidditch pitch. "You could be up there too Bill," Charlie says. But not even Charlie knows why Bill refuses to fly.


Bills looked wistfully up at the sky, watching the players maneuver and arch gracefully through the recessives of the pitch, balls flying every which way, their coach yelling something rather indistinguishable from his spot on ground, the brooms of every player a literal extension of their bodies. The cigarette in his mouth grew short and he ground the burning stub into the dirt beneath his feet. Without even thinking, he lit up another one and continued to watch the team practice.

He noted that Charlie flew off on his lonesome. He wasn't part of the trio in red throwing the equally red and beaten quaffles between each other, making their way towards the keeper who floated agilely by the keep waiting for them with vigil eyes, nor was he with the two beaters trying their best to catch each other off guard with their heavy iron balls and ferocious bats by hitting the cast-iron spears in each other's blind spots. Charlie flew alone, darting quickly between the players in practice, diving, nearly coming in contact with the grassy greens below, but pulling up just in time, his feet grazing the ground ever so slightly before he soared skywards again, up, up and away. He turned, but it was so quick Bill nearly missed the movement and was caught in awe as his brother disappeared from sight maneuvering between the wooden planks of the stadium-stands surrounding the pitch.

It was strange, he thought, that Charlie made such a good seeker. He wasn't tiny, and he wasn't exactly light like the other seekers and he certainly wasn't the shortest he could be. Charlie was 5'7", while short compared to Bill, was considered a tad too tall in quidditch-terms, because the perfect height for a seeker was 5'5". Seekers need to be tiny and quick and springy. Bill was stout, not springy, and he wasn't skinny or light, because he held considerable muscle mass from all the years he'd spent working outdoors and helping Hagrid with his crazy beasts. Even so, Charlie was incredibly quick on his top-of-the-line broomstick, the one he spent his entire life savings on, and it didn't matter that he was two inches too tall, nor that he wasn't a scrawny toothpick who weighed less then the broom itself. Charlie could catch the a snitch during a Quidditch match like no other, and the way he turned with god-like grace and speed on that flying piece of wood was amazing. People cheered Charlie's name and people loved him for his quidditch skills, telling him all sorts of things, like he could go national one day, not local British league quidditch, but bloody national and could compete in the World Quidditch Cup. Charlie was a divine being amongst the rest of the players on the pitch, a god worshipped and cheered for by his "subjects", bowed down to and given immaculate praise for his skills and magically-given talent. Bill was never all that sure where Charlie got his talent from, he supposed it just came naturally…

Still as Bill watched his brother soar hundreds of feet above him, he liked to remember fondly the day he taught his little sibling the mechanics of flying, using their families one and only broomstick and grinned with wicked affinity when his brother floated a mere foot off the ground and shouted _"Look Bill, look! I'm doing it Bill!"._ Charlie doesn't need his brother's help anymore, because Charlie can fly better then anyone Bill knows. Still, in the aftermath of every game when Bill sits quietly in the common-room reading over his arthimancy notes, after the party where Charlie was celebrated in the utmost, his brother will come and sit next to him and they will talk in the most brotherly of ways.

"You could be part of it too, Bill. I know you're good enough to be a Beater. You damn near well broke my ribs last summer at the Burrow…and those flower pots of Mums'? Priceless." He laughs heartily, trying to coax his calm older brother into some sort of chuckle, like he always does.

But Bill, like always will shake his head wistfully, staring silently out the window, his eyes focused on the dark and unseeable Quidditch pitch in the background of the moonlight and he'll tell his little brother the reasons why he doesn't and can't play quidditch like he does. It's simple, really.

"Quidditch isn't my thing Charlie…you know that." He'll say it lightly, with a smile, as if there are no hard feelings and no regret for not ever even attempting to try out for the team. But what Charlie doesn't notices is when his brother looks out the window in the darkness, he'll always stretches his left arm to his fullest, extending it along his lap, his fingers tracing the length of his ulna and radius and stopping ever so slightly at an indent near his elbow. Slowly and methodically, he'll touch the spot and with a slight look of remorse, he'll gaze down at his arm in remembrance. From a distance, it looks like any other arm, strong and well muscled with tendons moving ever so slightly in his wrist as he flexes his heavily ringed fingers. But if you looked closely enough, if you peered over Bill's tall shoulder, one could easily see his left arm isn't that straight, it's bent slightly, the expanse of bone and flesh between his elbow and wrist being a tad angled and arched to the right. Crooked.

Bill remembers being eight years old and falling from his broomstick. He wasn't that far off the ground, only twenty feet. Much lower then what Quidditch players fly. He fell and he fell and hit the roof of the garden-shed, his arm smacking violently against the tin roofing. It cracked and he fell again, slipping off the shed and onto the ground where his arm hit the ground and the bone sliced through the skin and made Bill vomit. His parents didn't take him to St. Mungo's. It wasn't anything serious they said. Little boys did it all the time. They fixed his arm at home in the Burrow without even consulting a Healer. It hurt and Bill cried, full out cried at the feeling of his bone retracting back into his arm. Still, when it was over, Bill's arm was good as new again, albeit being a tad sore. But bone cracking and bone splicing through skin is something Bill doesn't like to remember. The image of his arm twist at an awkward angle, his skin like jelly molding to the strange contours of his broken bones makes him sick. Charlie sort of sees the troubled look on Bills face as he looks out the window and assumes its because he doesn't play Quidditch like he wants too.

So why doesn't Bill play Quidditch? Why does Bill sit on the side lines and watch his brother soar to heavenly heights, maneuvering his broomstick with such skill, it could easily make Daniel Huffeton of the Maltrose Magpies jealous? At a young age, Bill took sport in hitting the garden gnomes with rocks with a stick from the old apple tree from the field behind his house. Later he even graduated to real bludgers taken from a set his Uncle Bilius gave the kids when he was ten. He could hit those damn iron-orbs with such accuracy that he could shatter a window from 100 yards away. Bill knows how to fly. Bill knows how to hit balls. The thing is, Bill just doesn't like breaking bones, something that he's seen happen time and time again when players fall from their brooms or stray bludgers careen into a hazardous course with the human body.

So Bill, like he is now, is content with just watching. Occasionally, he'll see the players flying, his brother performing magnificent feats of wonder, and the urge to pick up a broom and soar up there with him emerges from the depths of his stomach. But he'll look at his not-so straight arm and he'll see the scar and the slight indent right below his elbow and the feeling of regret vanishes. He's happy just watching because Quidditch is a dangerous sport. And while Bill likes dangerous, he doesn't like breaking bones. He doesn't need the fame and glory like Charlie thinks he does. The cigarette he was smoking, like the first, is almost gone. Practice is coming to an end and without a doubt, Bill knows they will beat Ravenclaw in the upcoming game next Sunday. After practice, Charlie comes and tells him that he saw him watching them again. Like he always does, he tells his older brother he could part of the action, that he's good enough for the team and that the captain would without question easily open up a spot for him. But like always, Bill smiles and touches the spot on the arm and repeats the time-worn mantra Charlie is used to hearing since he was in his second year:

"Quidditch isn't my thing Charlie…you know that."

It's sad because Quidditch is _exactly_ his thing...he just doesn't like breaking bones.


End file.
